
“I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.”
Source: Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography
Fully Booked: Q & A with John Banville (2012)
“I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.”
Source: Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography
“Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.”
Source: Novalis: Philosophical Writings
"T.S. Eliot: A Book Review" (1950/1956), p. 244
1960s, Art and Culture: Critical Essays, (1961)
"The Superstitions of Fred Anneday, Annday, Anday; a Novel of Real Life" (1935)
How Writing Is Written: Previously Uncollected Writings, vol.II (1974)
“Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.”
La vie ressemble plus souvent à un roman qu'un roman ne ressemble à la vie.
Metella, ch. 1 (1833); Robert J. Ackerman Perfect Daughters (Deerfield Beach, Fla.: HCI, 2002) p. 31